Many of the busiest photographers are busy because they are on jobs, but also because they test to push themselves further and explore new territory. - Joey L

Well, I can’t necessarily say I’m 100% occupied with photography jobs persay, especially when I’m not fortunate enough to do this for a living yet but I certainly occupy my time test shooting with people who are gracious enough to want to do so. Lately, it’s been a lot about lighting and putting into practice the endless hours of having watched numerous YouTube videos and CreativeLive course on the subject. Like anything else, lighting can be very elaborate and vexing but you won’t fully understand how much unless you go through the process of tinkering with it to make sense of it.

A get asked a lot about how I go about finding people to test shoot with which I wrote about as it relates to Instagram. Needless to say, reaching out and finding someone is never an issue. Perhaps a lot more important for me is being able to have a clear vision as to what I’m hoping to create during a test shoot as I take into account the person's time and also the money you might have already invested in renting out a studio along with lighting equipment. It all adds up quick.

Less is more is what they say which was my intention for this shoot with Tashon as I strived to keep it as minimalistic as possible and focus entirely on learning how to shape the light. There’s a few things I can easily reflect back on that are indicative a to what I could have done differently but overall it was extremely satisfying and fascinating to finally see in person what you can create by incorporating studio light to your work. Depending on the look you’re going for, the biggest hurdle to unravel for me was learning how to incorporating studio light into my work while still retaining that natural light quality.

Once I nailed the quality light I was aiming for, I purposely shut out from my mind the technical intricacies of the lights and focused entirely on Tashon to capture those impromptu moments.